In a compulsory election, it does not pay to energize your base to the exclusion of all other voters. Since elections cannot be determined by turnout, they are decided by swing voters and won in the center. Australia has its share of xenophobic politicians, but they tend to dwell in minor parties that do not even pretend they can form a government.
That is one reason Australia’s version of the far right lacks anything like the power of its European or American counterparts. Australia has had some bad governments, but it hasn’t had any truly extreme ones and it isn’t nearly as vulnerable to demagogues.
Even today, as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull faces an insurgency from the right wing of his conservative party, the principal threat is that these politicians will form a breakaway party — not that they will take over. They can’t, and even if they could, they would quickly face electoral oblivion unless they moderated. That’s more or less the story of the government of Mr. Turnbull’s predecessor, Tony Abbott, which indulged in too many ideological frolics and crashed after only two years.
The greatest aspiration non-centrist movements can seriously have in Australia is to exert a gravitational effect on the mainstream.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member